


The World After

by within_a_dream



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Past Child Abuse, original child character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 02:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4122243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Pontmercys build a new life for themselves amidst the rubble of the barricade and childhood trauma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World After

**Author's Note:**

> A fic for the 2015 Les Miserables Reverse Big Bang, for [a wonderful piece of art](http://flaviamarquesart.tumblr.com/post/121351213523/my-second-contribution-for-the-les-mis-reverse) by flaviamarquesart!

There were empty places at the wedding.

Cosette looked out into the sanctuary and saw a phantom flash of blonde hair, the mother who by all rights should have been there. Marius heard the ghost of raucous laughter, felt the memory of a slap to the back and a hearty congratulations. They both found themselves more wistful than appropriate, what was meant to be a joyous day laced through with bitter loss.

The wedding guests congratulated them, and they smiled and made small talk, pushing away their sorrow. Marius was the first to begin crying when they returned to their room that night, but Cosette followed soon after.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m happy to be married to you, I truly am, but this isn’t the way things were supposed to happen. There are so many people missing.”

“I know.” Cosette had never met Marius’s friends, but from the little he’d told her, she knew that he felt their loss keenly. “By all rights, they should have been here.”

“Courfeyrac would have loved to meet you.” Marius let out a sob. “He used to tease me about you, you know. He was convinced you didn’t exist. I wish you could have met him.”

They sat in silence for a while after that. This wasn’t how a wedding night was meant to go, Cosette realized with a smile. Then again, nothing about their courtship had been typical. It was fitting, somehow, that they’d spend their first night as husband and wife crying in each other’s arms.

There was only so long one could cry, and eventually they drifted into a quiet peace. Later (truthfully, she wasn’t even sure Marius was still awake), Cosette whispered, “Sometimes I wonder what my mother would have made of you.” It was the first time she’d mentioned her to Marius without prompting, she would realize later. “Or of me.”

“I think she’d be incredibly proud of you.”

“Do you really?”

He murmured his assent, stroking her hair. “Anyone would be proud to have a daughter like you.”

“I love you, Marius.”

“And I you.”

 

It took all of a week before Cosette began to miss her father. She was a married woman now, she told herself, and it was only natural that she move away from him a bit. Still, it felt wrong to cut him out of her life entirely just because she’d met Marius. The thought of him sitting in their old home alone, when she was so happy with her husband, broke her heart. So she invited him to dinner, telling herself she was imagining Marius’s disapproval.

When her papa refused to meet with her anywhere but a musty cellar, and when Marius rejected all invitations to join them, Cosette knew something was the matter. It was disgraceful that the two people she loved most in the world had conjured up some sort of conflict between them, and she intended to get to the bottom of it. Whatever the root of the argument, her father would never tell her. Marius, on the other hand, was more easily manipulated.

She’d found her husband was more amenable to her suggestions if she made them after they’d retired for the night, away from the eyes of the servants and his grandfather. That night, after they’d donned their nightclothes, she turned to him and said, “Marius, what have you said to my father?”

His face went a very strange shade of red, and he spluttered for a bit before choking out, “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing, but I can tell when my papa is unhappy. You, on the other hand, have told me quite a bit just now.” She nearly grinned, before remembering the gravity of the situation. “What’s happened between you two?”

“Cosette, if you love me, you won’t ask that question again.”

“If _you_ love _me_ , you’ll tell me what’s come between you. I love you, Marius, but I love him as well. He saved my life, he raised me, he did everything to ensure my desires were met, and there’s no secret that could turn me against him.”

Marius looked at her with anguish. “I swore I would never tell you.”

“You also swore to be my husband, and all that entails.” It made her stomach drop, to talk to him like this. He was already angry, and he was sure to be furious with her if she continued to press him. But if it came down to this, if she had to choose between her father and her husband, she had to defend the man who’d raised her, even if the consequences terrified her.

“Cosette…” Marius sighed. “He hasn’t been truthful with you. He’s a criminal, who broke his parole. God only knows where his wealth came from.”

“What did he do?” When Marius didn’t answer, Cosette took his hand and asked again. “Why was he arrested, Marius? Or did he not tell you?”

“Theft.”

Cosette thought of her papa, who had appeared like an angel one night to spirit her away, and who had spared nothing to protect and to care for her. It was surprisingly easy to reconcile that man with the man Marius described. So he’d stolen, once upon a time—what did that matter to her? It didn’t change what she knew of him. “I trust him, still. He must have had a reason to hide this, and he would never do anything to hurt me.”

“He’s a convict.” He grew angrier with every word she said. “I know you thought he was a good man, but he’s dangerous—”

“He’s my father!” Cosette cut Marius off with a jerk of her hand. “I know what you’re going to say, but the facts of my parentage don’t matter. He raised me; he’s my father, and I’m not going to cut ties with him because you don’t want to dirty yourself by associating with a criminal. Have you forgotten that you’ve done more than enough to cause grounds for your own arrest?”

“That’s not…you’re misrepresenting the situation!”

“Am I?”

They went to bed angry that night, and when Cosette awoke the next morning, Marius had left. He met her in the parlor before breakfast, with a crumpled fistful of flowers and a stiff, “I apologize for my conduct last night. I’ve thought about it, and it was wrong of me to turn against your father like I did, as well as to expect you to share my opinion.”

For Marius, that was the equivalent of begging on his knees for forgiveness. Cosette leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you. We’ll talk to him when he visits next?”

Marius nodded.

“Why the flowers?”

“Someone told me that when you fight with your…your wife, you should bring her flowers.”

That someone had been Courfeyrac, she guessed, and from what Marius had told her of him, he likely hadn’t been talking about a wife. “They’re beautiful.”

He beamed at her, his previous discomfort apparently forgotten. “I thought you’d like them.”

 

When her father came again, Cosette led him up to the parlor. He protested, and she pulled him aside to whisper, “Marius told me what you’re worried about.”

His expression turned stormy. “He swore not to tell you.”

“You should know better than to ask a man to keep secrets from his wife. And Papa—hush, I’ll call you what I want—you should know better than to expect this to change my opinion of you. Now before we continue, come and sit down. An old man like you shouldn’t be kept standing for this long.”

“I’ve got some years left yet.” He was smiling now, and Cosette smiled with him. But by the time they reached the parlor, his expression was once again grim. “You need to understand who I am.”

“I already know who you are!” Cosette took his hand in hers. “I know that you raised me, that you gave me everything a man could give to his daughter. I know that you love me, and I don’t think that anything else should matter. And don’t tell me I don’t understand. You were a thief; well, you’ve done more than enough good to make up for that.” With a start, she noticed the tears in his eyes. “Oh, Papa, don’t cry!”

In response, he wrapped her in his arms. Moments later, an awkward shuffle of feet caught her attention. Just as she suspected, when she turned around she saw Marius standing in the doorway.

“Monsieur Valjean? I have an apology to make.”

Her father shook his head. “There’s no need for that.”

“With all due respect, I disagree.”

Cosette leaned in closer to her father and whispered, “If you don’t let him finish, he’ll sulk all night.”

He allowed Marius his apology, and then wrapped his arms around him. Marius seemed startled by the contact at first, but soon returned the embrace. He’d been hesitant about her touch at first too, Cosette remembered, and she hoped that soon Marius would relax into contact with her father as he’d learned to with her.

 

As the weeks went on, her father began to reveal more of his past to her. The more Cosette heard, the sicker his shame made her feel. To think that he’d thought she would denounce him for a theft committed out of desperation broke her heart. But she knew better than to tell him differently—her papa had always been stubborn, and she knew she couldn’t erase his guilt with words. Instead, she did her best to show him that she still loved him, no matter what, and after a while, he stopped frowning when she called him Papa.

Marius could be extraordinarily unperceptive, but in this case, he seemed to see what needed to be done. Or perhaps he simply took to her father. With Marius, it was difficult to tell. In any case, they were soon as close as father and son, and Cosette would be jealous were she not so excited that her husband and her papa were getting along so well. This was truly everything she could have hoped for—and if Marius woke up shaking some nights, muttering about gunshots and bloodstains and his friends, if Cosette had moments of terror where she realized just how close she’d come to losing everything, well, that was life. Happiness was fleeting. It had taken her years to stop fearing that her father would tire of her and take her back to the Thénardiers, and if it took years more to convince herself that Marius wouldn’t leave her, she’d done it before. This was home now, and everything would be all right.

 

Marius sometimes felt as though Cosette wasn’t telling him everything. He wasn’t always the most observant, but even he could tell that she talked to him strangely, trying to guide him around to what she wanted him to do instead of asking him outright. When he was angry, even if it wasn’t with her, he began to notice the flash of panic before she plastered a smile across her face and began blatantly obvious attempts to placate him. He’d tried to reassure her that this wasn’t necessary, but was met with an insistence that she didn’t know what on Earth he was talking about. The only thing that had broken through to anger had been his shameful treatment of her father, something he didn’t care to repeat.

The best thing to do, he decided, was to set a precedent of honesty. So when Cosette caught him crying and asked him what the matter was, he stopped deflecting her concern and started telling her, no matter how ridiculous the reason for his tears might be.

And they were most definitely ridiculous. _I was thinking of what Courfeyrac would think of this suitcoat_ , or _Jehan would have loved this book_ , or _I remembered the way Éponine would smile at me sometimes._ She always took him seriously, and she seemed to know when to ask questions and when to sit quietly and hold him while he sobbed.

One night, when he woke up from another blood-soaked dream, it felt easier to tell her what he’d seen than to keep his silence when she asked, “What’s the matter?”

“I dreamt of the barricade.”

Cosette drew him closer and took his hand in hers, and that was invitation enough to continue.

“There was so much blood, enough that I couldn’t tell where mine ended and theirs began, and everyone was dying around me and I was certain that I was going to die as well, that I’d never see you again.” He broke off for a moment, trying in vain to compose himself. “Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t have died there as well. Why am I alive, when they’re all gone?”

“It’s horrible, what happened to them. But Marius, you know that they wouldn’t want you to feel guilty.”

 _What do you know of them?_ he wanted to snap, but he knew she was right.

Cosette ran her fingers through his hair until he fell asleep, and when he woke up that morning, his head was sore from crying but his heart felt lighter than it had since the battle.

She was propped up on her elbows beside him, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “It seemed a shame to wake you,” she said in response to his questioning look. “I know you haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

Marius sat up to kiss her. “Thank you.”

“For what? I only sat there.”

“You listened.” He leaned his head on her shoulder. “You let me talk, and you knew what to say. You always know what to say. I love you.”

“I’ll always be here to listen to you.”

“You know that the same is true for you? If there’s ever anything you want to tell me, I’ll listen.” Marius was worried that he’d frightened her at first. This was the kind of conversation where subtlety was required, and he was painfully aware that he was about as capable of subtlety as a draft horse.

But she smiled, and took his hand in hers. “I’ll remember that.”

It took a few days, but one night as they were lying in bed, she turned to him said, “You know that my father didn’t raise me from the beginning. He didn’t come for me until I was eight.”

Marius hadn’t, but it seemed like something he should have known.

“Before that, I lived with a family that my mother had entrusted me to. They were…cruel.” She told her story, and the more he heard, the more furious Marius grew.

“What kind of _monsters_ would do that to a little girl?”

“They were called the Thénardiers.”

He knew the name. He didn’t want to say it, but he was sure Cosette could tell that he knew the name.

“I think you may have known one of their children. You mentioned an Éponine?”  

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have…if I’d known…”

“She was a little girl at the time. I could never blame her. Isn’t it strange, how small the world can be?” Cosette laughed, shifting soon to a small sob.

“You’re all right. You’re here now, with me, and no one will hurt you again.”

“That’s just it, though.” She curled closer to him, her voice growing ever smaller. “Sometimes I worry that you’ll realize one day how I’ve tricked you into loving me, and you’ll leave me alone again.”

He hugged her tightly, laying a kiss on the top of her head. “You didn’t trick me into anything. I love you, and I always will.”

“I know, but it’s difficult to remember sometimes.”

“Tell me if you need me to help remind you.”

“I will,” she promised, and she did.

 

Not long into their marriage, Monsieur Gillenormand began to not-so-gently encourage them to meet new acquaintances, ones who moved in their social circles. Cosette would rather have avoided the whole affair--she and Marius were perfectly content to spend hours talking to each other. She was willing to admit that it might do them good to find others to talk to, but the couples Monsieur Gillenormand had introduced them to would not have been her first choice of friends, to say the least. She hated to think ill of people, but surely Parisian society had more to offer than the insipid bores they’d met so far.

Cosette was certain that nothing could be worse than their evening with the Bonhommes, who’d spent the entire night talking about their country estate and how thrilled they were that hunting season would begin soon. Unfortunately, she would prove to be mistaken about that.

Their dinner with the Monsieur and Madame Delacroix started out well. The conversation was engaging, and even Marius seemed to be enjoying himself. Then the topic of discussion turned to the recent revolts.

“I think it’s simply horrid,” Madame Delacroix said. “All of those violent young men, running about in the streets and tearing the city apart.”

Cosette saw Marius tense beside her, and took his hand in hers.

“There were so many dead,” Marius said quietly. “So many cut down, because they believed in something more.”

“If you ask me,” Monsieur Delacroix said, “they deserved what they got. People like that should be put down, to keep them from doing any more damage.”

“Marius,” Cosette whispered, tightening her grip on him. His face was rapidly reddening, and he looked ready to explode into a tirade at any minute.

“I need to leave,” he muttered, dashing out of the room.

“He was injured, you know,” Cosette said apologetically, smiling at the couple sitting across from her even though all she wanted to do was drive her salad fork through their eyes. “His leg still bothers him sometimes.”

After many more awkward minutes, she managed to usher them out of the house, thereafter immediately running to the bedroom (where she knew Marius would be).

“To say that they deserved it,” Marius muttered. “How could anyone be so cruel?”

“He was a horrid man who didn’t know what he was talking about.”

The look in his eyes was far away, as if he wasn’t seeing Cosette at all. “Does any man deserve to have half his face blown away by a cannonball? Or to bleed out in an alleyway, with his friends standing around him but unable to do anything to help, or…” He broke off with a sob.

“We don’t ever have to talk to him again if you don’t want to.”

Marius sniffled, a frightened look in his eyes. “My grandfather won’t be happy about that.”

“With all due respect, your grandfather can go to hell.” She felt a little guilty speaking ill of her husband’s family, but from what she’d gathered, Marius was more terrified of his grandfather than anything.

He laughed, a small and startled sound. “If he asks, I suppose I could just tell him that Monsieur Delacroix was a horrible man and I’d rather not speak to him again.”

She kissed him, laughing now as well. “It might be prudent to be a bit more polite about it, but if you don’t want to associate with people, he can’t force you.”

The idea seemed to come as a surprise to him. “He can’t, can he?” His grin faded a bit. “I do feel bad, though—he just wants the best for me.”

“I’m sure we’ll find acquaintances who are at least tolerable eventually.”

Marius laughed again. “One can only hope.”

 

They did eventually find tolerable acquaintances. Marius might even go so far as to call them friends. He was careful what he mentioned around them, but so far there’d been no other disastrous dinners. He and Cosette began to spend less time with her father, and more time with their newfound friends—something he would feel guilty about, later. It hadn’t even occurred to him that his father-in-law was simply a man, and an old one at that. When the news came, he didn’t believe it at first. Once he’d convinced himself that this was truly happening, he rushed to find Cosette.

She smiled when she saw him. “Oh, wonderful, I was looking for you! I have news.”

“As do I. Cosette, your father is dying.”

He should have broken the news more gently, but Marius wasn’t good at gentleness at the best of times. It was difficult to tell her what was happening when he was still half-convinced it was some sort of horrible joke.

“Oh,” she said again, face blank. “We should go to him.”

She was stone-faced until they reached his room, when she began to sob. Marius let her enter alone, standing awkwardly in the hall. It would be better to let her have her time with her father.

Cosette dragged him in a while later. “He wants to talk to you,” she said, and he found himself unexpectedly nervous. This man had every right to hate him, and still he’d treated Marius like a son.

Even on his deathbed, Valjean was smiling. He beckoned Marius closer, and took his hand.

“You’ve been such a good husband to my Cosette. Promise me you’ll care for her, when I’m gone.”

“I will, I swear it. Just as she’s cared for me.”

They sat with him until long after he’d breathed his last. The doctor came and went, the sun went down, and eventually Marius had to gently guide Cosette away.

“It’s late.” He took her hand in his, leading her towards the door. “You need to sleep, and we’ll need to make arrangements tomorrow.”

The carriage ride home was silent. What could one even say after this? That night, Cosette curled up against him and fell asleep crying onto his shoulder.

Breakfast that morning was subdued. Desperately fishing for something, anything, to say, Marius asked, “You said yesterday that you had something to tell me?”

Cosette let out a startled laugh. “I’d forgotten about that! Marius, I’m pregnant.”

Between the funeral and the preparations for their child, they barely had time to mourn. The first time Marius saw Cosette cry after the day of her father’s death was the night after the funeral, when she sat down in bed and sobbed, apologizing in barely intelligible words between gasps.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Marius said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not a bother, I promise. Any reasonable person would think you’re more than justified in this.”

She buried her face in his shoulder, whispering, “I miss him so much. He’s hardly been gone any time at all, and I miss him so, so much. How am I going to live without him?”

“We’ll make it. It won’t be easy, but we’ll make it.”

It seemed to Marius that they’d spent half their marriage in tears. He prayed that the next year would bring less cause for sorrow than the last.

 

The child was born in June. They named him Jean-Georges, after the grandfathers he would never know.  After the birth, Cosette held him and cried. This was a child, a tiny person that she was responsible for. She could give him everything she’d lacked when she was a child. Or she could make a mistake and ruin him, a voice in the back of her head whispered. How could someone as damaged as her raise a child?

“He’s going to be happy,” she said to Marius, hoping that if she could convince him, she’d convince herself. “He’s going to be so happy.”

“You’ll be a wonderful mother,” he said, kissing her forehead.

The days went on, and Cosette grew less nervous around her son. His smile made her heart sing, and he seemed to fit into her arms perfectly. Marius, on the other hand, seemed skittish around him. He held Jean-Georges gingerly, like he feared he would break. When she realized, Cosette made a point of leaving the two of them alone together, and slowly but surely, Marius grew into parenthood.

One day, she walked into the kitchen and found him engaged in conversation with Jean-Georges.

“Have another bite,” he said, all seriousness, extending a spoon towards their son’s mouth. When the boy fussed and hit it away, Marius sighed.

“I know, it’s not very good, is it? But we all have to eat things we don’t enjoy sometimes. I hate vegetables, and your mother still makes me eat them with every meal.” He paused while Jean-Georges cooed, then kept talking. “What if we take turns? I’ll have a bite, then you.”

It was then that he noticed Cosette in the doorway. “I’m sorry! I was only—”

“He’s your son as well,” she laughed. “You don’t have to apologize for talking to him.”

“Well, it’s rather silly, isn’t it? He can’t understand a word I’m saying.”

“Fathers are allowed to be silly.” She hugged him, laying a kiss on Jean-Georges’ head. “Don’t stop your conversation on my account.”

 

They took him to her father’s grave on the anniversary of his death, and to Marius’s father’s shortly after, when the weather was right for travel. When they went next, he toddled around the gravestone, laughing and running his hands over the inscription. The third year, he asked where they were going.

“To visit your Grandpa Jean,” Cosette said. “My papa. He died before you were born.”

“You were named for him,” Marius added. “Jean—just like you.”

Jean-Georges hadn’t stopped asking questions since he’d begun to talk. Marius and Cosette did their best to answer all of them, although they often found themselves turning to their library to seek an answer, and occasionally had to concede defeat. When he wasn’t asking about the color of the sky or where horses came from, he was begging for stories. His parents had found it was easier to draw from their own lives, so Jean-Georges had grown up with a wealth of uncles he’d never get to meet other than through Marius’s tales.

Once he’d heard Jean’s name, his eyes lit up. “Tell me a story! About Grandpa Jean.”

Cosette pulled him into her lap, sitting him down in front of the grave. “When I was your age, I lived with a family of monsters. Your grandpa Jean came to rescue me.”

“He was a knight?”

Cosette laughed. “You could call him that. I knew the minute I saw him that he would protect me. And he did. He defeated the monsters, and took me home with him, and bought me a doll. It was the first toy I owned, can you imagine that?”

“No toys?” He looked near upset enough to cry.

“Not until my papa came to fetch me. He brought me the most beautiful doll, with blonde hair and a pink dress and bright blue eyes. And he took me far away, to a wonderful house where I had a room all to myself.”

“Where was your mama?”

“She died, pet. But she sent my papa to take care of me. She loved me so much that she sent me the only person who would love me as much as she did. They both would have loved you as well.”

When they returned home, Jean-Georges demanded to see the doll. Cosette left him with his father while she ran to fetch her. “Now, be careful. She’s very precious to me.”

She needn’t have worried. He held her with reverence, tracing one hand gently over her face. “She’s so pretty!”

“Isn’t she?” Remembering the first time she’d held Catherine, Cosette smiled.

“Not as pretty as your mama.” Marius kissed her on the cheek, and Jean-Georges giggled. “No one’s as pretty as your mama.”

“Be quiet, you,” Cosette said, kissing him back.

 

Marius worried about his son. Too much, some would say, but he felt confident that a father was allowed to worry about his firstborn child. He worried that Jean-Georges would run in front of a carriage, or catch a disease and waste away. More than anything, he worried that he wasn’t a good parent. He spent so much time telling his child about the dead, and perhaps not enough time introducing him to the living.

“Do you think we’re keeping our family trapped in the past?” he asked one night, when he and Cosette had retired.

“What brought this up?” she asked, and he realized it might have been prudent to provide some context.

“We tell our son so much about your parents, my parents, my friends. I worry that we should be spending more time introducing him to the present.”

“It’s important to me, and I think it’s important to you, that he know where he comes from.” Cosette kissed him on the head. “He won’t be alone with us for much longer. Soon he’ll be off to school, and he’ll make friends, and you’ll wish he would sit still long enough for you to tell him about the time Uncle Bahorel dragged you to a tavern.”

“I don’t think I’d tell him that one,” Marius laughed. “But I can see your point.”

 

He _did_ feel better once Jean-Georges began attending school. He came every day with new stories about his friends and what his teacher had taught them. Marius began to feel he knew Jean-Georges’ friends almost as well as he knew the boy himself. He still begged his parents for stories (his favorites involved Uncle Courfeyrac, or Grandpa Jean’s daring escapes), but now he was just as likely to tell them tales as ask for them.

It wasn’t a surprise, really, when Jean-Georges came home with a bloodied nose and an angry note from his teacher.

As soon as he caught sight of his parents, he began a rapid-fire explanation. “It wasn’t my fault, Papa, Mama, I swear!  Guillaume was being cruel to Max, and I told him to stop, because everyone knows it’s not _Max’s_ fault his clothes are worn, but Guillaume kept at him so I _had_ to hit him!”

“It’s never right to hit someone,” Cosette said. She raised an eyebrow at Marius’s skeptical expression. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Well, everyone knows Guillaume is a cad, who most definitely had it coming.” Marius knew this wasn’t the answer she’d been looking for, but really, what did she expect him to say? Another grudging look from Cosette, and he appended his former statement. “Still, discussion tends to be better than using one’s fists in these sorts of situations.”

“But he won’t _listen_!”

“Then you’ll have to make him listen.” Marius sat Jean-Georges down on his knee, taking the damp cloth Cosette offered to wipe at his nose. “I’ve told you about your Uncle Enjolras, haven’t I? He would give these wonderful speeches, with words that seemed passionate enough to set the world on fire. I never saw him throw a single punch unless someone attacked him first. If you go after people with your fists, you’ll win until you meet someone stronger than you. If you change their minds with your words, then you’ll always win, and you won’t even get blood all over your shirtfront in the process.”

“You shouldn’t have hit him, you understand?” Cosette asked, bending down so she was looking into Jean-Georges’ eyes. He nodded, lip quivering. “We don’t hit people who didn’t hit us first. I think you should write him an apology note for your actions.”

“I will,” he said, voice soft.

She kissed him on the forehead. “I’m proud of you. Not because you hit him, but because you defended your friend.”

 

Jean-Georges had his dinner, wrote his apology, and went straight to sleep. Once she was certain that they wouldn’t be overheard, Cosette told Marius, “You simply can’t give your son free reign to punch everyone he thinks is a cad! Soon half of Paris would be walking around with black eyes.”

“I didn’t authorize his punching of _every_ cad by any means! My acceptance was limited to a particular cad, Guillaume, who if you’ve paid attention to Jean-Georges’ stories you’d know is a proper fool, and a cruel one at that.” Marius smiled. “Besides, I think we’ve managed to set him straight.”

“For now.” Cosette raised an eyebrow. “With these ‘uncles’ of his, I’m a bit frightened of how he’ll grow up.”

“My hope would be that he keeps only best of their qualities. And live a rather longer life, I suppose.” Now that he had a wife and child, a comfortable life here in Paris, it was hard to believe that the barricade had been only a few years ago. Some days it was hard to remember life before this; others he felt the loss of his friends as keenly as the day he’d awoken after being dragged from the barricades. “He’s a good boy.”

“He is.”

 

Jean-Georges came home the next day with a drawing—a very crowded ensemble of crude figures gathered together on what must have been a hill of some sort. “I drew our family!” he said, brandishing the paper at Marius. “See, Papa, there’s Uncle Courfeyrac, and Uncle Enjolras, and everyone else. You, me, and Mama are in the middle, and then Grandpa Jean and Grandpa Georges are over here, with Grandma Fantine.”

“This is lovely! Did you make it in class?”

Jean-Georges nodded. “Monsieur scolded me because I was only supposed to draw my family, but I told him this _was_ my family.” He looked up at Marius, confused. “Why are you crying? Did I do something wrong?”

“They’re happy tears,” Marius said, pulling his son into an embrace. “I love you so much. Now, why don’t we go find your mother? I’m sure she’d like to see your drawing as well.” He was so blessed, he thought, to have this child in his life. He had Cosette, and he had Jean-Georges, and God willing, his son would grow up in a better world than the one his friends had died in.


End file.
